Huwwara 19 March 2005 pmWatchers: Nurit L., Vivi T., Amalia V., reporting: Hava H. Spring is in the West Bank, green surroundings dotted with brown squares along which the ploughman walks with a donkey and wooden plough. The anemones have already sunk back into their bulbs and in their place the ranunculus and other plants flower. From time to time a rabbit jumps along the rocks on the hill. Spring in the West Bank and at the roadblock.InHuwwara south only a large, ugly open air sculpture remains but at Huwwara north the soldiers continue as usual.Immediately upon our arrival Ahmed runs up to us, the boy who crosses the roadblock with a wheelbarrow and takes packages over. This boy, stubborn, tough and sweating, crosses and returns – a constant in all the reports from every shift in Huwwara. His wheelbarrow has been taken away, returned to him, it has been confiscated forever and it returns to him, he has been warned and he has, perhaps, been punished and still he returns.This Ahmed runs up to us, points with his hand to the green rubbish bin standing by the roadblock and demonstrates his determination and his maturity in these immortal Hebrew words: son of a whore, son of a whore. This poetic lyricism is meant to explain to us, in short, that the soldiers have decided to brainwash him, they have thrown his wheelbarrow into the bin and he is not going to give in. And, indeed, in the huge bin, on the rubbish of the roadblock, mostly remains of food, tins and plastic bags, lays, miraculously, Ahmed’s wheelbarrow. How did it get in there? The bin has a heavy metal lid with two small hatches and the wheelbarrow is large. The boy runs around the bin, punches it with his fist, pushes, pulls and curses. From time to time he approaches those going to and fro to get them join in with his problem and his anger and returns again to the bin. Punches and pulls the heavy iron cover, jumps on it and looks at his wheelbarrow which is within, whole and unharmed, the handles lying on the rubbish, the wheels in the air and the metal bottom torn and scarred. First of all, how did it get in there and secondly, how can it be got out of there?It is prudent to start dealing with small wrongs with roadblock’s commanding officers, obvious and harmless. Small steps in order to build confidence. Amalia went to the officer with this small wrong, totally obvious and harmless. The officer, it appears, has just started his shift, he has no idea what happened before he arrived and he agrees with Amalia that it is not right. Not only that – he details two soldiers (from our army) to go and help the boy remove his wheelbarrow from the green bin. While the soldiers are manoeuvring with the jammed iron cover and the boy runs around it, about ten metres away the hellish routines of the roadblock rage along. Neither spring nor the let-ups have reached it. Hundreds of people are jammed in the concrete lanes in the bottleneck which culminates in the turnstiles. In each of the wings (each 60 cm., in length) three men are stuck, it is impossible to free them because they are held from behind by the queue and in front by the redheaded soldier who is enforcing instructions, she works the turnstile and shouts at the raging queue in front of her the words we thought we would not hear again: Irja lewara, one at a time. The x-ray machines are, of course, not working and the people cross through or around them. Another useless investment. “They are to blame,” the roadblock officer, a good and sympathetic man, tells us. “If they were to stand in line one by one the queue would not get into this state.”Tens of hands wave documents at us – doctors’ certificates, student cards, text books, permits and hundreds of angry people shout to us “tell him, tell him,” and “where is the peace?” (We tell them it is with the let-ups.) And while small children are grasping their mothers’ dresses and crying with fear, the efforts continue beside the roadblock to release Ahmed’s wheelbarrow from the bin. From somewhere an iron bar has been found, the soldiers who were detailed by the I.D.F., are taking their task very seriously and together they push, pull, release, sever, jump up, jump down and, finally, the heavy cover of the green bin moves and the I.D.F. presents the wheelbarrow to Ahmed and returns to other business. The brainwashing has not worked for Ahmed.Towards the end of our shift we ask Nir, a soldier who is familiar to us from other shifts and who is also a good guy and who does his best to behave decently, what is the caravan standing at the other side of the road with ‘humanitarian point’ written on it in three languages. Nir took the trouble to go to the roadblock officer, asked him for the key and showed us around the inside of this same humanitarian point. It is a small hospital and has everything in it – stretcher for people with back problems and an oxygen mask, equipment for blood transfusions and tourniquets and everything needed for artificial respiration and a water purifier and something called ‘philadelphi’, plus various other things and many tablets for all sorts of afflictions and suffering. Nir showed us all this and said: of course this is only for Palestinians. Everything. Yes, and there is a doctor ten minutes away from here.And I, who remembers the women giving birth to dead babies at the roadblocks and the people with heart diseases and the disabled in wheelchairs who were not allowed to cross to hospitals, and those who had Telesmia and were forced to undergo entrance examinations by the soldier at the checkpoint, and the cellist from Beit Iba who was shot in the elbow and all those I did not hear about and whose names I did not know, who were beaten and wounded and from whom medical attention was withheld and who were not allowed to go to hospital, I wanted to stand in the middle of the roadblock and sing out loud: Come here all you who are ill or in pain, every pregnant woman and sufferer from heart disease, every disabled and wounded person come hither, from now on you will be treated at the roadblock.This evening, I know, there will be a demonstration in Tel Aviv in favour of the disengagement. When one thinks about it, the disengagement is like Ahmed’s wheelbarrow which had to be got out with the help of the I.D.F., from a place it should not have been in from the outset while the occupation continues in all its force ten metres away.